Author: Collin Cornell

[Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe has served as pastor of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church since 1983, a multiracial church in Decatur, Georgia. He is the author of several books, including one co-written with Inez Fleming on the history of Oakhurst Presbyterian, another co-written with Caroline Leach on multicultural ministry, and a collection of sermons. He preached this sermon on 2 October, 2016, from the text of Luke 7:18-23. We repost it with his gracious permission. Estimated read time: 9 minutes.]

John the Baptizer had high expectations of Jesus as the Messiah. For John, the coming of the Messiah meant that Israel would throw off the Roman oppressors, that Israel would be honored rather than persecuted, that the evildoers would be eliminated. When he baptizes Jesus, his hopes leap up high: he believes that the time is at hand: “This is the One!”

And because of his passion and insight and fire, John was a threat to the political powers. Politically, he stirred up the people of Israel to think of throwing off the Roman oppressors and reestablishing justice. Religiously, he saw the leaders of the Temple as corrupt and urged them to reshape their lives – and he began to emphasize that people could get right with God by coming out to get baptized in the Jordan River rather than going to the Temple to sacrifice and to make their financial offerings. And personally, he urged all people to re-examine our lives: share your coats, share your food, don’t cheat or exploit or extort.

So it’s no wonder that in this 7th chapter of Luke, John is in prison. He is a man on fire, he has seen the Messiah in the baptism of Jesus, and that makes him dangerous. When John is arrested, I’m guessing that he doesn’t see it as a setback. Rather, his hopes continue to rise. Now we’re getting to it! Come on, Jesus, lead us on home!

But nothing happens. Things remain about the same. The heavens don’t open, the angels don’t come down, Rome remains in charge, the religious leaders are still corrupt. And in prison, the isolation and oppression can wear on one’s humanity. It’s difficult to maintain a balance, and so, in prison, John the Baptizer becomes disillusioned with Jesus, and he questions if Jesus knows what he is doing.

This story in Luke 7 has bad news and good news for us. The bad news is that even someone so close to Jesus like John the Baptizer doesn’t seem to get who Jesus is – and if John can’t get it, then who can? Pretty discouraging. But the good news is that someone so close to Jesus can’t get him, so the hope for us is not so much to get Jesus, as it is to be gotten by Jesus.

From prison, John sends messengers to Jesus, asking: “are you the One? Or are we to look for another?” Because if you’re the One, if you’re the Messiah, then you need to get moving! You need to start challenging Rome. You need to start challenging the Temple. You need to change a lot of structures – get going, if you’re the One!

Jesus gives a two-part answer to John’s question. First: “Go and tell John what you see and hear.” And Jesus basically quotes from Isaiah 61 to this man: “The blind see, those are who crippled are able to walk, the oppressed hear good news.” And then the second part, the more stinging part: “And blessed are those who are not offended by me.”

And, of course, John’s question from prison resonates in us and with us. We too often ask: “are You the One?” Because if you’re the One, if you’re the Messiah, why is this world in such terrible shape?

And so as we join John in asking Jesus this question, as we wonder if Jesus is the One, we should note that there are two different biblical views of who the Messiah is. One biblical view of Jesus as Messiah is that in his coming, the power of love has been unleashed in the universe, and in that, eventually all will be transformed by the powerful love of God seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Paul puts it so eloquently in the 2nd chapter of Philippians: “at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” In this view of the Messiah, it is loving that should dominate our lives. Those who knew the earthly Jesus and even Paul himself seemed to believe that this non-violent, tough-loving Jesus was the One; was the Messiah. So for the first generation of Jesus followers, “no killing, only loving” was the mantra.

But there is a 2nd biblical view of the Messiah, stronger in the Old Testament but also picked up a few generations after the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the biblical witness. This idea of Jesus as the Messiah developed and was written under harsh persecution by the state, by the Roman Empire. They saw a different face of the world, and thus a different face of Jesus. They saw an evil so radical that they didn’t think that is could be transformed by just the power of love in the name of God. This radical evil would have to be smashed in the name of God, by the terrible, swift lightning of the sword of God. Here Jesus as Messiah became the conquering Messiah, the One riding out in Revelation 19 with swords coming out of his mouth, to kill the evildoers. That’s the real One, that’s the real Messiah, this view says.

It’s why Christians lift up the Second Coming of Jesus, when the real Messiah will come, when Jesus will return and will be taking names and throwing people and empires into the lake of fire. For centuries, Christians have pounded on Jews for refusing to accept that Jesus is the One, that Jesus is the Messiah. But in many ways, the Jewish skepticism of Jesus as Messiah is duplicated in our Christian tradition which developed the idea of the Second Coming. At that time, our tradition says, the real Messiah will arrive and eradicate the evil that love seems unable to transform. It was ok for Jesus to challenge our idea of the Messiah in his life of love, in his loving death for us, and in his resurrection powered by love. But that’s not the real stuff in the real world. The real Messiah is the conquering, killing Jesus of Revelation 19, called King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

These two views of the Messiah compete in the biblical narrative – and in our hearts. Which one is the One, which one is the real Messiah? And we must admit that in our kind of world, with evil and domination and killing so powerful, the killing (but loving) Messiah often seems to be the only viable solution. And in this kind of climate, especially on this Peacemaking and World Communion Sunday, we must consider in our time Jesus’s answer to John the Baptizer’s question: “are You the One?”

And in his answer to John’s question, Jesus addresses us, too. “Go and tell what you see and hear.” And then that puts it on us, doesn’t it? What if the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the real Messiah rather than the dominating and killing One of the Second Coming? What if the loving, healing, demanding, compassionate Jesus is the real Messiah? Can we live with that? Can we live like that? Is that the meaning of our lives? Is that the meaning of life? Loving rather than killing?

Do the gospels really know what they are talking about when they show Jesus as loving and healing rather than killing and dominating? Do they really want us to choose that way over the way of redemptive violence? Is the real stuff of the Messiah what we see and hear in the life and teachings of Jesus?

Turn the other cheek, eating with sinners, sharing with those who are poor, depending on others for life, welcoming outcasts, loving enemies? Is that the real stuff of the Messiah? Or is that just Sunday school stuff, stuff for kids? Stuff that doesn’t seem to work in the real world. And, oh yeah, now it starts to get offensive to us, too, and we join John in saying, “are You the One?”

Because what we see and hear in the real world is explosions in malls, people blown up, the rich crushing the poor, black and Latino men shot down by the police. Oppression, cruelty, destruction, hatred and greed. That’s what we see and hear.

And where we tend to go is the killing Messiah, the power of redemptive violence where loving seems to fail. And if redemptive violence is part of the Messiah, then we can adopt it, too – we can adopt it now, in his name. “Bomb the hell out of them,” as Donald Trump once put it. And we should note his strength in the polls. He speaks from that deep reservoir of fear and pain and revenge that is in all of us. And we dismiss Trump as an isolated lunatic at our own peril. His voice speaks from a deep well in American culture, waiting and even longing to be uncapped after the November election. So please register to vote, get your friends to register, and then vote. There is a deep stream in us that believes that the world is a scary place; that believes in the power of loving is weak, that believes only redemptive violence can win the day.

And the second part of Jesus’s answer to John speaks to us: “Blessed are those who are not offended by me.” Jesus’s answer to John and to us reminds us that Jesus asks us to consider a whole new way of orienting ourselves and of living our lives. What if the point of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is about moving towards loving and moving back from killing? What if we are being asked to make a decision about this Jesus of Nazareth? Is he the One? Is the loving of his life the real Messiah? Or is the killing one, the King of Kings, the real Messiah?

The Bible agrees that the world is a scary place, but the gospels suggest that in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, we see the real Messiah. We see the truth of the life and the truth of our lives. And that truth is that God loves this world with all its messiness and scariness, that God is engaging this world, calling us not to a life of redemptive violence but to a life of loving. That we are being asked to let love dominate our lives rather than fear.

So, like John, we’re asking, we’re loving to know: “are You the One?” And only we can answer it. May God’s spirit guide us as we seek to find and know the answer to this question, are you the One? Again and again and again in our lives and in our journey. May the Spirit of the real Messiah be with us. Amen.

It’s been a few months since the Metanoia Collective began – enough time for some feedback to start filtering back to the collective’s contributors. I heard recently from a good friend of mine and an alumnus from my evangelical undergraduate. He accused us at Metanoia – “Christian social justice warriors” – of being a “legalistic sect.”

A legalistic sect. My friend felt towards us something like Paul’s fury towards the Judaizers in Galatians, who had added burdensome requirements to the simplicity of the Christian gospel. Jesus commands his followers to love God and love neighbor. So for Paul: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal 5:6 NIV). To this essential minimum, we at Metanoia have (in his view) demanded as necessary to Christian faithfulness that other white evangelicals join us in pursuit of racial justice. We also give the impression of looking down on white Christians who do not share our commitment – the condescending hallmark of legalism. We alone know the narrow way – a sure sign of sectarianism.

A strong charge, and one we are working to digest.

A few considerations:

The first and only remedy for legalism, real or perceived, is to prioritize God’s love. “We love” – God and our neighbor – “because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We take it as a good challenge to us as writers and thinkers that one of our readers has found the ethical cost of following Christ far more in evidence at Metanoia than the good news of God’s love. Unless our writing and advocacy and obedience radiate out from gratitude for God’s gift, we will only be weighting people down with “a cumbersome load” (Mt 23:4). We can certainly strive to keep these better proportioned: the good news front and center and the shape of a thankful life in its wake.

The solution to sectarianism is to emphasize that there are other ways besides our own to love and obey God. We acknowledge this; loving God and neighbor looks different depending on the time and place. We at Metanoia are concerned about faithfulness in one time and place and context: ours, as white American Christians living after slavery, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights, and now living through a resurgence of the Civil Rights struggle. We realize that the form Christian love takes in our generation will not be the same as in other times and places.

As we try to discern what loving God and neighbor looks like in our own moment, we keep in mind a few biblical trend-lines. Jesus calls each generation afresh, but because he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Heb 13:8), we can expect him to make demands of us consistent with those he made of our forebears in faith. The first pattern, then, is: faithfulness for the privileged looks like divestment. Jesus tells the rich young ruler to give up his possessions and the Pharisees to give up their pride of place. Paul tells the rich in faith to consider the weak (Rom 15:1), and those with plenty to share with the poor (1 Cor 11). As white people, we are the safe, secure, and privileged in American history.

Second, that faithfulness is public; it isn’t just for the private spaces and places of prayer and church, interpersonal friendships, or community cookouts. Jesus Christ led a public ministry and was executed by the public authorities. The early church set a similar pattern of engagement. Loving neighbor cannot be set apart from social justice; in the words of Cornel West, “justice is what love looks like in public.” Conversely, the word for someone who is friendly and loving on an individual level but acts for his own best interest on the public plane is hypocrite. There were plenty of individually kind slavemasters who had no intention of ceasing to profit from the public institution of slavery – just as today there are plenty of individually caring evangelical Christians who will do nothing to cut off our flow of privileges or to join in struggle with black people seeking survival and equity. The black theologian James Cone writes that “it seems that whites forget about the necessary interrelatedness of love, justice, and power when they encounter black people. Love becomes emotional and sentimental.” [1]

Third, faithfulness looks like prioritizing the voices that we and “the crowd” tend to ignore. Jesus Christ welcomed the children when his disciples thought they were beneath him, and he healed blind Bartimaeaus when the crowd tried to hush his cries. Paul tuned in to the voice of him whom he had been persecuting. In the same way, we as white people have been trained not to listen to black and brown voices. We must begin in earnest.

The recent hoopla about our national anthem and black athletes, whether they supposedly displayed disrespect by not covering their heart as Gabby Douglas or sitting it out as Colin Kaepernick and other athletes following suit, is an exposé of why racism is a rattrap for America: racism has been a core identity of America like no other nation.

Before the first slave was sold in London, England was a nation. Not so in America. Investment loans were created to buy slaves in Richmond before the ink on the Declaration of Independence dried. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, pillars of American democracy, the former by his political savvy and the latter by his eloquent words, got slaves when they were of age. Slavery, and its ideological child, racism, is America’s original sin because the American republic, as Jim Wallis argues, was founded on the principle that “black lives and black bodies don’t matter.”

Gabby was thrashed, but no one batted an eye when the shot put champions, Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs, gazed at the flag with their arms comfortably limp at their thighs. To be American is to be white. Blacks — and other non-whites — are perennial foreigners who must prove their citizenship unfailingly. My Korean father made us memorize the anthem because, he explained, “You are not white so you have to be more American than whites.” Most of my white friends mumbled through it.

After the 2015 execution of nine African-Americans by Dylan Roof with a monomaniacal vision of volleying a racial war, immense community pressure translated into a vote to bring down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House, a long-coming admission of the racist nature of Confederacy. But the Confederate flag has served as a scapegoat. Before the Confederacy, there was one America, birthed on the shipping, buying and selling of black bodies. So fundamental was this anthropology that when Jefferson wrote, “All men are created equal” no qualifying phrase was necessary, for it was “self-evident” that it meant whites only.

With racist ideology being fundamental to America’s raison d’etre, talk of racism inevitably incites powerful emotions. The chant “Black Lives Matter” feels like an attack and thus the rejoinder, “White Lives Matter.” Both racial equality and accusations of racism are perceived as a threat to America as dangerous as submarine nukes possibly lurking under the Pacific. Denouncing Washington for owning slaves is paramount to attacking the American government. I understand the sentiment. I would rather speak of my father’s courage to land in J.F.K airport with a single Benjamin in his wallet rather than the hurtful words that echo fresh in my head.

Abraham Lincoln boldly confessed this dark American identity in his second inaugural address. In an attempt to frame a meaning to the horrible loss of life, half a million Americans, he said:

fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Sensing that the loss and the dark past was beyond political language, he called upon theology, a way to talk of the world with a divine agent, to help the nation, and himself, be both honest and hopeful in the tragedy and sin.

I wonder if the only way we can make a passable path on the issue of racism as a nation is the language of theology, specifically, the theology of repentance, that can reach back to our past, face our original sin and make full repentance.

Repentance means “changing of one’s mind.” In Christian theology, it begins as a confession, not just of one’s sin but one’s state: “I am a sinner.” Sin is not external to you, like a cloth. It is part of your identity. Yet, by that confession one creates a separation from the sin. “I am a sinner” leads to “But I am not that sin.” With sin separated, a new identity is given which actually is a return to the original identity. In repentance, one practices the paradox of becoming more oneself by recognizing the contradictions in oneself. Confession in repentance then leads to reparation, actions consistent with the new/old identity.

So John the Baptist called his tax collecting Jews to be true Jews by repenting and returning any money wrongfully collected.

If America could fully repent of its original sin, it would find a new American identity that is not a betrayal of the old.

The power and viability of the theology of repentance was recently embodied by Georgetown University when on September 1st, John J. DeGioia, its president, publicly apologized for profiting from the sale of 272 slaves in 1838. It had all the marks of “true repentance,” full admission of sin at its core identity and commitment to reparation, such as the policy to give preferential admission to descendants of the enslaved (people disagree on whether the reparation went far enough). Mr. DeGioia said the impetus of Georgetown’s actions were drawn from the rich source of “Catholic tradition,” i.e., the Christian theology of repentance.

Georgetown offers a vision of what America can do. If America publicly repented of its “original sin,” neither whitewashing nor demonizing the founders, but confessing that though they sought equality of all men, they wrongfully excluded blacks, then America would remove all justification of racism that still linger hidden in the public discourse and policies.

Additionally, we would see the fight against racism not as an assault on the American identity, but as a building of a new Union that is more faithful to the words than those who signed off on them, the words that began the American experiment: “All humans are created equal.” Such repentance would be a faithful revision, a turn to a truer self.

[Awesomely Luvvie is a writer (and author), digital strategist, red pump rocker, techie, and professional troublemaker. She blogs at Awesomely Luvvie.com and her book, I’m Judging You, is a New York Times bestseller right now! In her most recent piece, “Another Day, Another Hashtag,” she addresses white people directly and provides nine things that we can do to fight racism now. With her gracious permission, we have re-posted an excerpt, with links here and below to the original.]

It’s another day and another hashtag that shouldn’t be. It’s another day for us to know someone’s name, not for how they lived, but how they died. It is another day where I am reminded that to be Black in America is to have an acute countdown clock over your head.

[…]

White people. Yes, you. Even you nice ones. These things that are happening? These horrifying things that are happening to my people? They are because people who look like you, have set up a system of supremacy that flourishes. It is one that says people who look like me are violent, threats. It doesn’t matter if they’re holding books, wallets, bags of skittles. It is one that allows people to be killed by cops while sitting in their cars. It allows people to be killed while they lay on the ground with their hands showing. It allows people to be killed while walking away. And their murderers are employees of the state. These killings are state-sanctioned.White people, I’m talking to you. THIS. IS. YOUR. PROBLEM. TO. FIX. Y’all got some work to do, because this system that y’all keep on privileging from, you’ve got to help us dismantle it. Because those of us who are Black and Brown. We have tried. You created this robot, and it is yours to deactivate. My skinfolk don’t have the passcode. This is your monster to slay.

How? I am not sure, but below are some real ways to start.

[Follow the link here to finish the article and read Awesomely Luvvie’s nine ways to start!]

This is a refrain we at Metanoia Collective have heard a lot lately in conversations with fellow white evangelicals. For various reasons — tactical, political, theological — many folks who read our blog feel they cannot lend their support to initiatives for civil rights like Black Lives Matter. The whole issue of race in America is (they say) too complicated. Too fraught. The BLM movement is too politicized. Too liberal. Too grandstanding. Too accusatory. Too controversial. Too self-righteous. Etcetera etcetera.

To which we say: perhaps so!

Perhaps the tactics, politics, or theologies of BLM and their coalition of supporters are misguided in the ways our readers specify.

But the point I would like to make is just this: the alternative course of action that so many of our conversation partners propose is simply untenable.

“I’m just gonna love my neighbor as best I can.”This kind of claim sounds pious. It means: “On an individual, interpersonal, and local level, I am going to strive to my uttermost to practice love. But beyond that, I just don’t know — or I just can’t go.” But imagine for one moment if the black and white evangelical abolitionists of the early 1800s had taken that approach. What would have happened if, instead of speaking up and agitating for the emancipation of enslaved black Americans, they had contented themselves to be loving and responsible (if also politically agnostic and disinvolved) neighbors in their churches and communities? Or: imagine if the multitude of ordinary black Christians in Montgomery, Alabama had, instead of boycotting the city transit system, determined that the best thing for them to do was just to be loving towards their personal circle of friends and neighbors? Or if the black students in Greensboro, North Carolina had decided not to put themselves at risk by engaging in sit-ins? Or if folks declined to march from Selma to Montgomery in the spring of 1965? After all, these actions were each very controversial and grandstanding and self-righteous! I’ll tell you what would have happened: nothing. Slavery and Jim Crow would have remained the law of the land.

“I’m just gonna love my neighbor as best I can.”

So when white evangelicals make this their purpose statement, it is in fact a rallying cry for doing nothing and maintaining the status quo. It is saying, “I will not step beyond the comfortable, manageable realm of my own friends and acquaintances.”It is saying, “I will love my neighbor — as long as that means I sustain no risk to my reputation, no change to my politics, and no substantive alteration to my thinking.”It is saying, “my life is not in jeopardy; I am safe. Maybe this is not true for the black and brown people of my country, but I can only tackle the race problem on an individual, case-by-case basis. Not in any concerted, collective manner!”But this is not what Christ did, and not what he calls us to.

Jesus Christ demonstrated what love for God and love for neighbor look like. And it did not mean living a modest, quiet, careful life of doting on a few neighbors. It did not mean staying insulated from controversy, politics, and solidarity with the hated people of his society (sinners, tax collectors, and other lowlifes). Jesus wasn’t targeted by the authorities and killed because he was so politically sober-minded and universally well-respected. Au contraire. As Christians and as evangelicals we claim to worship a crucified man as Lord. One could not dream up more of a lightning rod for controversy in the ancient world — even if we’ve lost touch with that and have become pious and respectable defenders of keeping things the same and God-forbid-the-boat-should-rock.

“I’m just gonna love my neighbor as best I can.”If we white evangelicals make this our mantra, we will excuse ourselves from discipleship to Jesus Christ and we will ensure that later generations look back on us as champions not of his fame but only of our own racial self-interest.

[Reposted with gracious permissions from the author, Adam Ericksen, and the site administrators at The Raven Foundation. The original post dates to August 30, 2016, and can be found here.]

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand while the National Anthem played on Friday night. He plans to continue his protest into the season. He defended his decision over the weekend, stating that, “This country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all – and it’s not happening right now.”

By sitting down, Kaepernick is standing up for those people who remain voiceless. “There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. Cops are getting paid leave for killing people. That’s not right.”

Kapernick’s protest comes during a time when black men like Philando Castile and Sylville Smith have been murdered by police officers. Just this weekend, the Associate Press reports that, “After threatening to sue, the Chicago Tribune has obtained data from the city’s police department that tracks every time an officer has opened fire in the city over the past six years. The vast majority of those hit were black men or boys.”

Racism in America

Racism remains a huge problem in America. Jim Wallis describes the problem well in his recent book on racism, America’s Original Sin,

Too many African Americans have been left behind without good education, jobs, homes, and families—and these factors are all connected. Perhaps most visibly and dramatically, the treatment of black men by police and a still racialized criminal justice system in America became painful and controversial national issues over the last few years, making visible what has been true for decades.

Of course, these facts have been invisible to white Americans, not the many black Americans who live with a system of oppression every day. And now Kaepernick has placed that racism front and center.

The truth will set you free. But the truth about racism that Kaepernick has set before us is making many white Americans uncomfortable. Instead of suffering from white fragility and defensiveness, we would do well to listen to Kaepernick’s reasons for protesting.

Unfortunately, many fans are not listening. In a classic case of white fragility that blinds us to the truth, they attack Kaepernick. In fact, the Twitterverse relentlessly criticized him. Some burned Kaepernick jerseys, while others criticized him for being anti-American. Others assert that the 49ers should release him.

Kaepernick doesn’t seem to care about the consequence. After sitting down during the Anthem, he told NFL.com, “I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed … If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what’s right.”

Many, including the 49ers organization, have defended Kapernick’s right to sit during the anthem. The team’s leadership commented, “In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”

Kaepernick’s supporters have generally followed the 49ers lead. As an American, the argument goes, he has the freedom to protest. Some say this with resentment, as in, “He has the freedom to act like an idiot.” But I’d like to explore a different motivation that has little to do with American “freedom” – Kaepernick’s Christian faith.

Because, you see, America and Christianity are not the same thing. For many Evangelicals, if you criticize America, you are criticizing Christianity.

Since coming into the NFL, Kaepernick has spoken about his faith.* He also has Bible verses tattooed on his chest and a cross on his arm. But his expressions of faith are more than skin deep. Kaepernick is standing up with those cast to the margins of society by a culture that continues to foster systemic racism. In doing so, he is using his platform to worship the God who stands with the marginalized in order to transform human culture.

Christianity: A Protest Movement

When Jesus announced the Kingdom of God was at hand, he was implicitly protesting the Kingdom of Rome. He became one with the oppressed, speaking with and for them. Jesus challenged the national and religious power structures of his day, and those power structures killed him as a result.

The Roman empire gained strength through violence. Like a black man living in America, Jesus was arrested and killed by state soldiers and police. As the Gospel of John tells it, “… a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees” came to arrest Jesus “with lanterns and torches and weapons.”

Jesus protested Roman oppression in order to show Rome an alternative way of living. The way of love and justice. And he suffered the consequences.

After his death, the early Christians continued as a protest movement that hoped for social transformation. “Jesus is Lord,” they proclaimed, which meant Caesar and the Roman Empire were not. They refused to worship the Roman gods of conquest that oppressed those on the margins. They risked their lives by declining to participate in public displays of national loyalty that required people to offer sacrifices to Caesar. The early Christians protested. They sat down.

One can argue whether Kaepernick is being a loyal American by refusing to stand during the National Anthem. But in standing up against racism that continues to oppress black people in this country, he is following Jesus. And like Jesus, he is suffering the consequences.

Kaepernick is showing us that for Christians, Jesus is Lord. Which means that America is not.

*I’m aware of gossip websites that claim Kaepernick is being “anti-American” because he converted to Islam two months ago. This false connection shows that not only is racism a problem in America, but so is Islamophobia. Whatever the case, Christianity and Islam have long histories of protesting cultural oppression. As a Christian, I pray for the day when Christians are criticized for being “anti-American” when standing up with the oppressed.

[Reposted with gracious permissions from Rev. Denise Anderson, Pastor Naomi Christine Leapheart, L.T. (Lisa) Lewis, and Reverend Wil Gafney, Ph.D. and from the RevGalBlogPals site administrators. The original post dates to July 11, 2016 and can be found here.]

Okay, white family. Let me talk to you right quick…

For those of you who ask “How long?” or “How many times must this happen?” I’ll tell you precisely when it will stop. It will stop when people en masse are aware of the ways in which whiteness/white supremacy have shaped the way people of color are viewed, engaged, and treated in this world (even by other people of color). To come to this realization, however, white people will then have to be self-aware and convicted of the ways in which they have benefited from and promulgated the lie of whiteness. As necessary as this is for the well-being of society, it is also an uncomfortable undertaking and there is literally nothing forcing white people to do it. White people, then, will likely have to create the force.

Rev. Denise Anderson

White people, you have heard it said that you must talk to other white people about racism, and you must. But don’t talk to them about their racism. Talk to them about YOUR racism. Talk to them about how you were socialized to view, talk to, and engage with people of color. Talk to them about the ways you’ve acted on that socialization. Talk to them about the lies you bought into. Talk about the struggles you continue to have in shedding the scales from your eyes. Don’t make it “their” problem. Understand it as your own problem, because it is. To not do this would put you in danger of being yet another well-intentioned racist, convinced of their own goodness and living a life wholly unexamined and unaccountable to anyone. We don’t need anymore of those. It’s confession time.

— Rev. Denise Anderson is a member of the RevGalBlogPals Board of Trustees, a Presbyterian Church (USA) Teaching Elder living in the Washington metropolitan area and Co-Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She blogs at Soula Scriptura.

***

I’ve had so many white people offer me apologies over the last 48 hours. So many expressions of “I can’t imagine what it is to be Black/a Black parent/a parent of a Black child…!”

Let me be candid. My response to these sentiments is:

Please do not lament that you cannot imagine what it is to be Black. Nobody needs you to be Black. Instead, fully feel what it is to be bankrupted by whiteness.

Pastor Naomi Christine Leapheart

Allow yourself to look, finally, at your gaping wounds, the wounds of whiteness. Acknowledge the paralysis you may feel around difficult truths about America and her white supremacist ideas, practices, and theologies. Acknowledge the disconnection and disembodiment you suffer because of generational denial and wrongheadedness. Acknowledge the guilt you feel because you’ve done nothing, said nothing, felt nothing. Acknowledge the shame you feel because you, too, are implicated. Acknowledge the resentments you may feel because you believe the call to center Black life is a diminishment of your own.

I can’t imagine what it is to be white.

When righteous white people understand how they have been poisoned unto death by white supremacy, perhaps our frameworks can change.

According to the Pew Research Center in 2014 70.6% of Americans, age 18 and older, self-identify as practicing a Christian religion. That may explain why, in light of the recent shootings and killings in the United States, all over various social media platforms everyone is talking about praying. Pray for the black community. Pray for our nation. Pray for law enforcement. Pray. Pray. Pray.

I’m one of the 70.6%. I’m an ordained Elder in the Christian church as a matter of fact. But I’m also a black woman, divorced mother of two children; a daughter and a son. I wasn’t poor. My children weren’t impoverished. Although we were solidly middle class, I still learned firsthand the challenges of successfully raising black children, especially a young black boy into adulthood. I prayed too but at some point I had to stop praying and get to work.

I couldn’t do it alone, however, I needed help. Help came in the form of faith, family and family-like-friends. Specifically, a Christian husband and wife, Elton and LeWan, with children of their own came to my aide. They didn’t just pray but they responded. Their help came at a very critical time in my son’s life and made a difference. Today, my son is proudly serving in the United States military defending and protecting the lives of all its citizens.

Lisa Lewis

The challenges that are facing our nation requires more than just praying to God but listening and responding to His call. God needs hands and feet; all 70.6% of us, to bridge the great racism divide in our nation. We are our brother’s keeper; regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.

On the heels of such a great nationwide tragedy, I’d like to remind us Christians of our call to action issued by Jesus Christ in John 14:12, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

God answers prayer through people. If we don’t plan to use our hands and feet to get the work done, please stop praying. #BlackLivesMatter

— L.T. (Lisa) Lewis is an ordained elder and serves in a non–denominational Christian church, Sons of God Outreach (SOGO) Christian Ministries, in the Washington Metropolitan area. She blogs at Kick-Boxing Believers.

***

I am trying to wrap my head around a group of four people who would agree to ambush and assassinate white police officers at a black lives matter rally. I am having a hard time with the idea that anyone would do that and find others who would agree to do that. I know it is not reasonable or rational. Black lives matter and the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were used in the sick, twisted self-aggrandizing murder spree. Not in our names. Not in the names of the dead. Not in the names of the murdered. We need to address gun culture in this country. We need to address racism in this country. We need to change police culture and tactics in this country. We need to build bridges between police and the communities they police. And we need to mourn, lament, pray, prophesy and preach. We need to do the work that needs doing for ourselves, our children and our society. No matter who is against us and this work, though the forces of hell array against us, we must do this work or none of us shall survive.

The Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD.

The assassinations of the Dallas police officers must be talked about in their context which includes black lives matter. We must continue to say that we were doing the work partnering with our officers. We will not let our name or the movement be hijacked. Nor will we be shamed into not saying that #BlackLivesMatter.

— The Reverend Wil Gafney, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas and is an Episcopal Priest. Follow Wil on Twitter and read her blog.